Unitek College Unitek Information Systems scammed For-profit school school of excellence is actually school for-profit Fremont California

I was a student in the LVN to RN program at Unitek College in Fremont, Ca. I did not receive a fair or honest education at this institution.

On November 4, 2014, I submitted a request for a grievance hearing via email to the Chief Academic Officer, Christy Torkildson. The reason for my appeal was because I failed to attain a minimum passing grade of 74.5% at the end of the second semester. Christy Torkildson replied stating that the grievance hearing would be held the next day on November 5, 2014. I was told I was not to repeat any information or decisions that were presented in the hearing. Among the committee members was one of my instructors.

I learned later on that my fellow classmate who had also filed a grievance and whose appeal was also denied, was eventually given an opportunity to retake an exam. What made Unitek change their previous decision and what makes one student different from another?  

The comprehensive exam, which was to determine my final grade for the semester, was held on October 31, 2014 at 10am. That afternoon I checked my grade for the comprehensive exam on the school's student portal, and it showed a score of 73%. At 4:34pm I received am email from Christy Torkildson stating that I failed the course with a 73% and I would be withdrawn from the program per policy. That evening my grades for the entire semester were removed from the student portal and I could no longer access them, which was very odd. What was even more unsettling was that my account on the Unitek student portal showed that I had an appointment for FA post withdrawal disbursement posted on October 31, 2014 at 12:00am. This is several hours BEFORE I took my comprehensive exam. I have taken a screenshot of this post and have saved it on my computer for reference.  

Since my grade for the exam was a 73% on the portal, and she stated I failed the course with the same exact score, I was confused and went to her office to speak with her on Monday, November 3, 2014. I asked her what my grade was for the course and what my grade was for the exam. She then pulled up my grades on her computer and showed me that my grade for the course was actually a 72.4% and the grade for the exam was a 73%. She offered no apology for the confusion and did not explain any of my options until I inquired about filing a grievance. 

After I spoke with Miss Torkildson, I reviewed my comprehensive exam with Mr. Hatten-Parker. I found a question on the exam that was not valid and I showed him proof in the textbook. He said he would follow up on it and get back to me. The next day I still did not hear from him so I decided to send him an email. I attached pictures of the information in the book and on the slides in order to prove my point. He argued back, saying that his question was correct and he would send me the rationale later. He never responded after that.

Furthermore, there were many errors on several of the exams throughout the semester. As a student it was very distressing because I was forced to argue for points to be given back, even though I presented proof from the textbook. I later found out that there were other mistakes on the comprehensive exam that points were not given back for, and a few of my classmates and I were already withdrawn from the program. This means that Unitek did not even review the exam thoroughly and correct errors before withdrawing people from the program! Instructors changed frequently, so there was constant confusion as to whose lecture to follow when studying for exams.

There were also several students who were cheating on exams. A student whose name shall remain anonymous informed me that all of the answers to the Endocrine exam were given to a clinical group by their instructor called "Mr Z." A female student in this clinical group told me that Mr Z often said inappropriate things of a sexual nature to her and other female students in her clinical group. However, since she was allegedly being provided test answers, why would she report it?  

Also, exceptions were made for some students and not for others. A student made a medication error at Eden Hospital and was allowed to continue on with the program. Unitek's policy states that a med error that may potentially cause harm to a patient will result in an automatic "Fail" for the day. Since you cannot makeup a fail and you only get three days of OB clinical, this would mean that you have failed OB altogether: theory AND clinical. This student happened to be male and it was common knowledge in the class that males were treated better by the female instructors. In fact, it became the class joke after a while!